Looking into purchasing an inline duct work fan to push heat. I have an Alaska Channing III coal stove with the 265 cfm fan just isint pushing enough into my ductwork so looking to get an inline fan has anyone use one and what brands are there i am only finding a couple. The Channing does not come with the 500 cfm or i would get that and I would like not to modify one.

Ok, first off do not buy the cheap one at the big box store, been there done that. They burn out quickly and are louder than you think. I have changed my set up since then, but if I needed a fan I would go with one with a squirrel cage design and an external motor for quiet operation. Good luck!

I once (as a favor) installed a large draft inducer used to draft large oil furnaces and boilers, it was made for 12" flue pipe and worked pretty good on a friends 1600 sq ft homes ducting needs.I believe he bought it online, (maybe pex.com) it was a field controls model DI-4 Pretty straight forward , cut the bottom of the duct, install the inducer and wired it into his pellet stove blower control. Well I actually used a peanut relay so as to not overload the circuit boards relay, but you get the idea. Thought it was a hack job, but worked extremely well, I had feelings it would pull to much air over the heat exchanger, as a small squirrel cage blower did just that, but the large inducer working quite well. The inline duct blowers you buy online are pretty small with shaded pole motors, designed just for maybe one room, this motor is a permanent split phase type motor capable of pushing allot more air under load, and is just higher quality. Worked for his needs, me I - cant say i would have done that , but it is still operating so whatever.

Please elaborate more on this fan, is it as quiet as stated on their website? Does it have enough ass behind it to move the air?[/quote]

Yes it is quiet especially from the input side, I used a piece of flex duct to quiet it down on both sides, acts somewhat as a muffler. My first one was a 440CFM, and it would blow the cat across the room! To help quiet down any fan always up size the duct work to help. The FV-20NLF1 uses 6 inch and I run 8 to and from it.

I had a problem heating part of my house with my coal stove due to the location of it. I ran flex duct through my attic from the room with my stove in it and branched off into 4 rooms on the opposite end of the house. I used a fantech 8" inline fan from grainger. A bit on the expensive side but worth every penny. Its not too noisy and moves quite a bit of air.

If your duct work is hooked up to a furnace with a blower, you can interconnect it with the stoves blower. Or use a fan limit temperature controller or a thermostat that has a clean cycle control that cycles the furnaces blower. This way you have two blowers working together or seperately.

michaelanthony wrote:Ok, first off do not buy the cheap one at the big box store, been there done that. They burn out quickly and are louder than you think. I have changed my set up since then, but if I needed a fan I would go with one with a squirrel cage design and an external motor for quiet operation. Good luck!

Absolutely stay away from the big-box in-line fans. I bought two of the worthless things and they were fine when they were out of the box and not installed. After I installed them and they had some resistance they pushed very little air. When they wind blew outside, I could hear them slow down. I could hear them all the time because they were LOUD!

I, too, went with a squirrel-cage blower tied into the duct work. Takes a little more to get it installed, but well worth it. Moves an enormous amount of air, much quieter, and I can run one blower instead of two fans.

I tried ll the inline fans from Lowes and homedepot and none of them moved enough air. I ended up installing a 650CFM Suncort in 8inch flexible duct, it pulls the air from directly over my stove and pushes it into the living room on the far end of my house on the second floor.I heat my entire 4200 sq ft house with a harmon super mag and all rooms are within 2 degrees of 72. The fan can be purchased online at a bunch of places for under 200.00. Running it since 11/2009 without issues. Much cheaper, more airflow, and better built than the Grainger model that is almost 500.00